Is this a baby carriage or an infant’s face? One glimpses only hints in this unusual painting—lips, a hand, metal handlebars, and a nose float in a primordial soup, continually reemerging as different objects. Bands of red, white, and blue could be walls and a floor. In the more matte areas, de Kooning applied paint with paper towels. As these patches dried, medium seeped out around their edges, creating oily shadows that push the yellow and white shapes forward.